It’s one thing for Kremlin critics to say that TV has gone down the toilet since President Vladimir Putin pulled the chain on independent programming.

But last week viewers of a state TV news report on protests in Kiev -- against President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to reject a trade deal with the EU – were startled by clips from a Swedish educational series on bodily functions.

The title of the series is a play on Swedish words for “wee wee” and “poo poo,” words familiar to kiddies worldwide. But its fanciful cartoon portrayal of backsides and genitalia was denounced as the kind of “Euro Sodom” that innocent Ukrainian children would be exposed to if Ukraine went West instead of East.

Leading the charge was Rossiya 1 anchor Dmitry Kiselyov, who informed viewers, rather contradictorily, that Sweden was a sewer of child depravity with a “sharp rise in child abortions…from the age of nine, and it is not surprising that child impotence starts at 12. There you have European values in all their glory.”

In a surprise decree published Monday, President Vladimir Putin announced that RIA Novosti – which had struggled to maintain its balance under state control – would be disbanded and replaced by a (more reliable) news service called Russia Today.

In a bitter exit note, RIA called the move “the latest in a series of shifts in Russia’s news landscape which appear to point toward a tightening of state control in the already heavily regulated media sector.”

Kiselyov’s rising state stardom is also a pointer to a more intense crackdown on homosexuality, in the apparent guise of child protection.

Last year he made headlines for backing up new Russian laws criminalizing “gay propaganda” on his TV program, saying that mere fines for “homosexual propaganda among teenagers (are) not enough.”

Homosexuals should be banned from blood and sperm donations, he maintained, and in cases of accidental death, their hearts should be “buried or burned” to prevent them from being used as donated organs.

This medieval-sounding argument was “normal,” he added later, explaining that it was internationally recognized that HIV is mainly spread by homosexuals – although Russian AIDS specialists credit an epidemic of heroin addiction, augmented by stigmatization of drug users.

No matter. The latest move has hit three major Putin targets in one: the disobedient media, the LGBT community and the West. A bargain for Kremlin spin doctors. But not for the majority of Russians who get their news and views from state-run media. And for whom the information window is steadily shrinking.

Olivia Wardcovered the former Soviet Union as a bureau chief and correspondent from 1992-2002.

12/04/2013

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger arrives at parliamentary hearing to defend his newspaper's publication of leaked intelligence documents. He carried a copy of the banned 1987 book Spycatcher. which caused scandal by revealing history of MI5 spy agency. Photo: AFP/Ben Stansall/Getty Images.

Britain may be on its way to making journalistic history – and not in a good way.

According to Reuters, Brit police are pondering whether to investigate Guardian newspaper staff for “terrorism offences” because they received and published material handed over by Edward Snowden, the now exiled American spy agency contractor who went rogue with up to 200,000 classified U.S. and British documents.

Yes, you did read that right. Terrorism offences.

Right up there with Al Qaeda, Al Shabab, Al Nusra and the Haqqani Network. And all the other suicide bombers, hostage-takers and would-be underwear bombers who are hunted down, jailed and put on international no-fly lists, if they survive their dastardly deeds.

So what did these journalistic jihadists do to set the security establishment's collective teeth on edge?

The MPs who grilled Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger this week said it was making top secret information public and sharing it with other news organizations. They pointed to Section 58A of the Terrorism Act (you know this already) which makes it a crime to “publish or communicate” any information about the armed forces or intelligence services.

But here’s the thing: “it isn’t only about what you’ve published, it’s about what you’ve communicated,” said Tory MP Michael Ellis, a member of the home affairs committee, airing a view seconded by London’s Specialist Operations chief Cressida Dick.

Broadly speaking, “communicated,” could mean that anyone who receives any information that might be verboten under the act is at risk of a terrorism prosecution. In Britain, that could get you up to 10 years in jail.

As expected, the international media community was not amused.

“Horrifying is how I’d describe it,” says Tom Henheffer, executive director of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. “How can you have investigative journalism when you can’t even get a brown envelope without fear of a charge? This could have a major effect.”

And he points out, although Britain already has more draconian muzzling laws than North America, the Guardian case goes even farther.

“Labelling journalism as a crime and terrorism is frightening language,” he says. “It stinks of dictatorial rule.”

Watergate journo Carl Bernstein wrote the Guardian a letter of support, pointing a finger at the authorities’ “dangerously pernicious” attempt to turn the embarrassing surveillance debate on government secrecy back on the media.

The Guardian has been a leader in exposing massive monitoring of private phone, email and social media communications by the U.S. and its allies, including Britain and Canada. It denies that it has published any names or details that put spy personnel or operations at risk.

In the latest revelation, Wednesday, the Washington Post said that the U.S. National Security Agency – the world’s largest harvester of private data – gathers nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cell phones around the world, allowing it to track customers’ locations and relationships “in ways that would have been previously unimaginable.”

Stay tuned.

Olivia Wardhas covered conflicts, politics and human rights from the former Soviet Union to the Middle East, Europe and U.S. She also follows the ballooning of Big Data.

And satirist Stephen Colbert, in a mock Ford apology, joked, “have I lied to you about never smoking crack? Yes I have. Is that the worst thing in the world? Does that make me a murderer? No. Have I ever murdered anyone? Yes, but that was in the past. While I was high on crack. In the present, I am not murdering anyone.”

From New York to New Zealand, it seems, everyone has now heard of Toronto.

Writing in the National Post,London-based writer Afsun Qureshi commented, “the one upside of this sad, sorry mess is that the whole winter wonderland, maple syrup, happy clappy, quaint cliché of Canada that still annoyingly prevails in the UK has been re-written just a little. Now we are seen as drugged-up overfed losers with an ineffective police force and a public with strange voting habits. Like I said, thanks for that, Mr. Mayor.”

So is Toronto’s clean-and-safe, tourist-and-business-friendly image up in smoke?

Not according to British expert Simon Anholt, whose Anholt-GfK Roper City Brands Index ranked Toronto ninth in its 2013 survey for overall image, but only 28th on familiarity (although the latter may have abruptly changed.)

“There is a huge amount of vague, general, positive goodwill tied up in the international image of Canadian cities and provinces, which it would be extremely hard to damage in any serious or permanent way,” Anholt said in an email.

Furthermore, “we don’t change our minds about cities just because of one rogue mayor: you’d need Ford-type mayors running the city for at least a generation before people around the world started thinking that Toronto was somehow less admirable than the country in which it is located.”

And still on the bright side, Ford has taken over the well-worn stereotype of the “Ugly American” – an out-of-control, loudmouthed, obscene, violent, drunken aggressive slob.” However, “since the one thing everybody in the world knows about Canada is that it’s not America, they will probably regard him as what he is: an anomaly.”

Whew! At least, until 2014.

Olivia Wardhas covered conflict, politics and human rights from the former Soviet Union to the Middle East and South Asia, winning national and international awards.

Wang, 58, controls companies such as Sunseeker International, a U.K.-based maker of yachts used in the James Bond movies, and is known to sing Tibetan and Mongolian folk songs during his company's annual meetings.

He has a pedigree. His father fought for Mao Zedong's Red Army during the Long March campaign during the 1930s, and also against the Japanese in World War II.

Wang himself served for 16 years in the army before being honourably discharged as an officer.

According to a story in the Financial Times, Bloomberg was close to publishing a story about the close ties between Wang and the relatives of top Communist party officials.

But during an Oct. 29 conference call with reporters who worked on the story, Bloomberg editor-in-chief Matthew Winkler said the story would be spiked because it would jeopardize Bloomberg's position in China, the FT reported, citing an unnamed source familiar with the call.

A Bloomberg source told the FT that reporters "had crossed the Rubicon. The story was fully edited, fact checked, and vetted by the lawyers."

The report comes days after news that China blocked a visa for veteran American journalist Paul Mooney who was waiting eight months to begin a new reporting job in China for Thomson Reuters.

Winkler would not tell the FT whether he had suggested Bloomberg might be ousted from China for running the piece. “The reporting as presented to me was not ready for publication,” Winkler told the FT.

Bloomberg has built a reputed news service that specializes in covering the financial markets. But the company, founded by New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, makes much of its money from computer terminals that are used by securities traders. Bloomberg leases about 315,000 of the terminals around the world for $20,000 each. (Total estimated annual revenue: $6.3 billion.)

China's aristocracy has been under intense scrutiny in recent months. In April, New York Times reporter David Barboza won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for showing the wealth amassed by the extended family of former premier Wen Jiabao.

Following Barboza's reporting, China blocked web access both to the English and Chinese versions of The Times.

Rick Westhead is a foreign affairs writer at The Star. He was based in India as the Star’s South Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011 and reports on international aid and development. Follow him on Twitter @rwesthead

10/30/2013

On Wednesday George W. Bush's smarter, younger brother (or so we're told) speaks in Toronto at an Economic Club of Canada luncheon. But here's the rub: His U.S. handlers have put a strict media embargo on recording his speech, barring a three-minute video mime show without sound. And there'll be no intrusive journo questions when it's done.

Ink-stained wretches, if there are any left kicking around, are welcome to squint at their notebooks and scribble. But unless Jeb adopts a slo-mo John Wayne drawl, the possibilties for actual quotes are lower than for a new debt ceiling deal next week.

But whoa Nelly.

Could it be that Jeb -- the former Florida governor touted as a 2016 Republican presidential candidate (if Dubya hasn't burnt the Bushes for a generation to come) -- is just an old-fashioned guy who wants to lead a cavalry charge of classic pen-and-ink journalism to combat those ADD twitterversers and YouTubers?

That could stimulate a whole new job creation program in shorthand: teaching the delightfully quaint skill that preceded the smartphone thumb. And in a third generation Bush presidency, who knows, there could be room for a revival of the portable typewriter. Every reporter worth her or his paltry pay would be clamouring for the services of a telegrapher.

Not so likely?

Then the alternative, it seems, is an equally retro desire to keep the fine print of Jeb's thoughts from the public at large, something few politicians are willing to do in an age of aggressive self-promotion.

That would be a shame. According to the advance blurb, Jeb was set to apply his "visionary understanding" of America's future to a few "simple questions" like defining its core values for tough economic times and parsing its current policies on issues from education to the economy and immigration. (For the record, he's for it. Or maybe not.)

He'll throw in a critique of the Obama administration and -- no secret here -- a look ahead to 2016, when he may run as a Republican rescue remedy, countering the crazies who have plummeted the party's polls while steering the economy into the ground.

Or will he?

"This is not the right time to be thinking about that," he told ABC news last week with characteristic pragmatism. While adding that neither public distaste for Washington's "massive dysfunction" nor the feeling that three Bushes on the summit of power are at least one too many would dissuade him from running. If indeed he decides to run.

And we can quote him on that.

Olivia Wardhas covered conflicts, politics and human rights from the former Soviet Union to the Middle East and South Asia, and the last two U.S. presidential campaigns.

"My great problem in life," he once said, "is that I do not really know what my role in life is."

That was then. For Prince Charles, things appear to have changed.

In a profile of the prince, Catherine Mayer, Time Magazine's London-based Editor at Large, describes a man who has found his way: doting father and grandfather, happy husband, determined environmentalist, commited philanthropist.

Charles and Mayer had extensive conversations and she says she had very good access to his friends. The result? "Much of what you think you know about the Prince is wrong. Much of what I thought I knew about the Prince was wrong."

She writes: "He believes in the monarchy as a force for good, but accepts that people might question its relevance. He prefers not to focus on his accession, which, after all means losing his mother. And far from itching to assume the crown, he is already feeling its weight and worrying about its impact on the job he has long been doing."

Along with examining Charles' participation in public life, his thoughts on architecture, grandfatherhood, and organic farming, Mayer also sprinkes a few personal princely tidbits throughout the piece. Her revelations include:

He scrunches his toes inside his shoes to stay awake during boring speeches;

Dancing with the Prince, according to the actress and writer Emma Thompson, is "better than sex;

He is patron of 428 charities, and is president of his own, the Prince's Trust, which helps young Britons find work, education, or training, and has assisted 650,000 people. (One of the most famous, according to the magazine, was Idris Elba, famously Stringer Bell in "The Wire," who recieved a grant to attend the National Youth Music Theatre) and;

Charles is "notoriously frugal," keeping his "palatial residences frigidly underheated, saves his bathwater for the garden and wears garments so mended they are more patch than original."

Jennifer Quinn is a foreign affairs and investigative reporter at the Star. As a journalist with the Associated Press, based in London, she wrote extensively about British politics. Follow her on Twitter @JQStar.

10/29/2013

The Queen and other members of the royal family do hundreds of engagements -﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿ that's what their personal appearances are known as - every year. They visit hospitals and schools and open new community centres and do all kinds of worthy (boring?) things.

They don't always make the news, even in the U.K., or even register in my consciousness - and I am a pretty vigilant royal watcher. But I was quite touched by a visit the Queen and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, made Tuesday.

They went to Brixton in south London. In the minds of many, this neighbourhood is inexorably linked to the 1981 riots that occurred when tensions between residents and the police came to the boil and divisions of race and class spilled over.

And Brixton is still a pretty tough place. But in the middle of the concrete and apartment buildings is the Ebony Horse Club, which helps underpriviledged kids learn life skills, encourages them to stay in school and gives them experiences they might otherwise miss out on.

They learn to ride and look after horses, and find mentors and maybe a different path in life.

Camilla is the patron of the club and a very keen rider. But her mother-in-law is no slouch in the saddle and she, too, knows her way around a stableyard.

Perhaps that is part of the reason they both looked genuinely pleased to be there, with the kids and their mounts. Camilla had a massive bag of polo mints in her purse - the preferred snack of British horses; they're kind of like Life Savers - and doled them out as the riders grinned madly.

The Queen paused every so often to say hello and have a chat, and the kids stood very proudly, showing off their work. The horses were groomed to within an inch of their hooves, and the stable was neat as a pin.

There's a joke that the Queen thinks the entire world smells of fresh paint because everyone spruces up their digs before she arrives. But how nice to see people so proud, and so excited, to show off their hard work.

Consider this exchange, chronicled by the Daily Mail, between the Queen and 8-year-old Oulwakarede Asunloye.

"She asked me whether my picture was up on the wall (with the other success stories) and I told her that I had only had four lessons. She said: 'I think it will be one day.'"

Nice, huh?So there it is. Proof that even a cynical old hack like me can get sentimental.

(As an aside, I was super-amused to see the Daily Express describe the Queen's coat as "geranium." The palace press office is always willing to specify the colour of Her Majesty's outfits. I once called to check on a suit-hat combo and was told no, it was not actually pink - it was raspberry.)

Normal service now resumes. Perhaps I'll find a weather story to complain about.

Jennifer Quinn is a foreign affairs and investigative reporter at the Star. As a journalist with the Associated Press, based in London, she wrote extensively about British politics (and royal fashion). Follow her on Twitter @JQStar.

10/24/2013

Finally, a justified correction on language use at Guantanamo. For the record, Navy Capt. Robert Durand, Guantanamo's longtime spokesperson for the Joint Task Force GTMO, is indeed muscular, not "thickset." There's a saying among troops at Guantanamo that you either leave "hunk, chunk or drunk," (there's not much to do in your spare time on the island other than work out, eat, or drink).

Well, who did I see at 4:45 a.m. working out to the latest fitness craze known as "Insanity" one August morning in Guantanamo's media hangar? That's right, that's Durand jumping about.

Public Affairs Officers during a pre-dawn work out in Guantanamo's media hangar in August 2013. MICHELLE SHEPHARD / TORONTO STAR

Here's a recent photo courtesy the Miami Herald's Carol Rosenberg of Durand (left) and his replacement, Navy Commander John Filostrat, who recently took over the post.

If you'd like more evidence for the "thickset" vs. "muscular" debate, the Daily Mail dug further, posting Facebook photos of Durand in a wetsuit beside his equally slender wife, at a race finish line, and at his 1990 wedding (he appears muscular then, too).

The Washington Post article that required the correction featured Durand's unenviable task of improving Guantanamo's image.

Managing the message at Guantanamo has been an issue since the Pentagon released the first images of the detainees in Camp X-Ray's outdoor pens, which were replaced by permanent facilities four months later. Journalists touring Guantanamo are shown the spot where that 2002 photo was taken — a none-too-subtle suggestion for the before and after shot.

What is refreshing — and yet so amusing — about the Washington Post correction is that it concerns Durand's physical description, not Guantanamo's.

In past years public affairs officials may have bristled about the Post's headline that refers to Gitmo's "prison camp." One former commander in particular liked to correct journalists who didn't refer to Guantanamo as a "detention centre" and prisoners as "detainees." (The significance is that prisoners of war are afforded Geneva Convention rights that Guantanamo detainees were not.)

10/07/2013

There was a pretty minor, relatively boring, cabinet shuffle at No. 10 today.

When this happens, the political correspondents from all the news networks have to stand outside the famous front door waiting for various people in suits to troop in to find out they've been fired/they've been promoted. (Delete as applicable.)

Norman Smith, who is the excellent chief political correspondent for the BBC, was on duty this morning, and as he stood waiting for the news to trickle out of the heart of British government, he spotted Larry.

Larry is not some minor minister: He is the Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office. (Really.) Obviously, he is a cat. He was adopted from the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home to help out Downing Street with their mouse problem.

But I think it is fair to say that Larry is not known for his commitment to rodent eradication. And it seems a cat can't snatch a nap around here without getting his picture snapped.

Cue all sorts of amusing jokes about how Larry's slumber reflects the country's interest in reshuffles and questions as to whether he's getting a new role. While cute, this may not be a good time for Larry to be snoozing on the job.

Last week, it was suggested that the Camerons "don't like" Larry and that he's just a PR prop. Gasp! But then the Prime Minister went on Sky News and disabused the nation of this notion.

"I'm very keen on Larry," David Cameron said. "I think this story came from when I was once rude about Larry's mousing abilities. It is true that he once sat on a chair in my study at Number Ten and this mouse ran across the floor and Larry just lifted his head and had a look at it and did absolutely nothing."

But still, "he's a much-loved cat and my family adore him."

Just don't ask him about cabinet shuffles. Or mice.

Jennifer Quinn is a foreign affairs and investigative reporter at the Star. As a journalist with the Associated Press, based in London, she wrote extensively about British politics. Follow her on Twitter @JQStar.

10/04/2013

A Syrian child in a refugee camp near the Turkish border. (Photo: BBC)

When "Saving Syria's Children" aired on British television, the BBC broadcast a warning at the start of the documentary: "There are scenes which some viewers may find upsetting."

Shots of children, staring solemnly at the camera with huge, dark eyes. Premature babies, thin and tiny, reaching out to doctors who coo over how small their fingers are.

Then, this: "I think there's been some kind of chemical attack. There's dozens of people that have just been rushed in, covered in burns and some kind of white powder dust. All their clothes are hanging off them."

And that is in the first three minutes. It's bloody, even though there is actually very little blood, and upsetting.

It's bloody upsetting.

BBC reporter Ian Pannell and cameraman Darren Conway were in Syria earlier this year with two doctors from a charity called Hand in Hand for Syria. Dr. Rola Hallam usually works in a pediatric ICU in London; her colleague, Dr. Saleyha Ahsan, in ahospital in Essex, just outside London.

In August, the doctors, trailed by the journalists, travelled close to the front lines to see what conditions are like; they met families who have lost children and homes, yet still bake bread and offer it to visitors.

They spoke to an 85-year-old man who is suffering with diabetes and hasn't had his medication. He and his family have been forced to move from place to place for two years. A tear rolls down his cheek as he speaks to Hallam; she leaves him an emergency food parcel, something she calls a drop in the ocean.

After their trip, the doctors return to a hospital in the city of Aleppo. Ahsan is looking after a baby with a burned face; it's difficult, and the doctors are concerned that there's little in the way of pediatric supplies.

Then, cars and vans and ambulances begin pulling up. And people, their skin and clothing hanging off them, start staggering in. They're mostly teenagers. Their school, they say, has been attacked. They are very badly burned, and the doctors are worried they're dealing with a chemical attack.

"It was a surreal, slow-motion event," Pannell recalls. "The hospital was overwhelmed. And you had these kids writhing on the floor."

In the footage, children look like zombies, shaking, swaying on their feet and drooling in what must be shock and pain.

A father screams at the camera, pointing at the blistered face of his child: "This is my daughter! This is my daughter!"

Ten of the children died.

"I found it difficult not to be touched by what (we) saw," says Pannell, an experienced conflict journalist who has reported from Afghanistan and Iraq, among other war zones. "The overriding thing is nobody can say they didn't know what was happening.

"You may choose to do nothing about it - you may choose not to donate ... and politicians may choose not to act," he says. "But you can't say you didn't know."

Jennifer Quinn is a foreign affairs and investigative reporter at the Star. As a journalist with the Associated Press, based in London, she wrote extensively about British politics. Follow her on Twitter @JQStar.

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